1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a lever assembly used in the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus having the same, and a solenoid used in the lever assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an image forming apparatus has a pickup roller that picks up printing media one by one from a printing media cassette. A pickup roller control unit controls the pickup roller to rotate so that the pickup roller picks up the loaded printing media one by one to feed an image forming unit according to a signal from a controller of the image forming apparatus.
The conventional pickup roller control unit uses a solenoid as an actuator to control rotation of the pickup roller according to the signal from the controller of the image forming apparatus. Here, “to control rotation of the pickup roller” refers to rotating or stopping the pickup roller according to the signal from the controller of the image forming apparatus.
Generally, in the conventional pickup roller control unit, a connecting part or a lever that holds a rotation shaft of the pickup roller to stop the pickup roller according to motion of the solenoid is disposed between the solenoid and the rotation shaft of the pickup roller. As a result, in the conventional pickup roller control unit, the controller of the image forming apparatus controls the solenoid, thereby controlling the rotation of the pickup roller.
In the conventional pickup roller control unit, the connecting part or lever to hold the rotation shaft of the pickup roller and the solenoid to actuate the connecting part or lever are separately formed from each other, and disposed directly on a main body frame of the image forming apparatus. Because the conventional pickup roller control unit and the solenoid are separately installed on the main body frame of the image forming apparatus, it is difficult to install the pickup roller control unit on the image forming apparatus.
Additionally, because the conventional pickup roller control and the solenoid are separately installed on the main body frame of the image forming apparatus, if a portion of the main body frame in which the lever or connecting part is installed is not precisely machined, the relative position between the lever or connecting part and the solenoid may deviate from the designed positions. When the relative position between the lever or connecting part and the solenoid deviates, the solenoid cannot operate smoothly. Also, when the relative position between the lever or connecting part and the solenoid deviates from the designed positions, the pulling force with which the solenoid pulls the lever or connecting part may decrease.